NUS Business School
In Asia for Business & Management studies
NUS Business School has a rich history of over 50 years. The school offers education to a diverse group of talents for all its academic programmes. Founded in the same year that Singapore gained independence, NUS Business School stands today among the world's leading business schools.
SCOPE
Information Architecture
Responsive Web
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ROLE
UX research
User testing
Wireframe
Prototyping
UI design
Overview
This case study is centered around the information architecture of NUS Business school. Both me and my partner were tasked to relook at the IA, and based on the given personas, improved the user experience of NUS Business school. We embarked on this 11-day journey and presented our findings on the last day.
The process
Research has always been the fundamental foundation for all my processes. I begin by defining how I'm going to tackle this project and the strategic approach throughout the entire project.
The Methodology
Using Jess James Garret’s Elements of User Experience, we were able to go into the fundamental level of NUS Business school’s website and rework our way up from concept to completion. This framework guided us from the beginning to the end of the project.
Business analysis
It becomes evident the first step is to map out the goals of both the business and its users.
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For NUS,
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it would be to stay competitive in order to attract smart and talented students
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it would be to create amazing experiences for all their students
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it would be matching the overall brand experience with other top universities globally
For students,
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it would be a site that is easy to access information easily
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it would be a site that is easy to use in an intuitive fashion
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it would be a reliable site when it comes to daily activities related to the school
Heuristics evaluation
We combed through the pages and needed a good reference to assess the web experience of NUS Business school’s site. Using Jakob Nielsen’s ten heuristics evaluation, we document out findings.
Personas
We were tasked to work on 3 personas. Each of them have their own pain points and task to complete.
Competitor analysis
Based on all the three personas and their profiles, we mapped their experiences SMU and INSEAD, to further understand how NUS fared. We used a point system to tabulate the overall results.
This analysis was done for John. We did all 3 personas as well as an overall competitor analysis.
Content inventory / Audit
We did a IA content audit and plotted the sitemap using Axure. Not only did it help us with the complete breakdown of the site, but the indexing of each individual pages is also one way for us to have better collaborations with developers and other team members working on the site.
User flow
We did the user flows for all 3 personas. However, for this case study, we focus our efforts on redesigning the experience for John himself.
Card sorting
Together with the user flows all mapped out along with the existing sitemap mentioned earlier, we created cards out from the flow while referring back to the sitemap.
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To prevent assumptions and to validate our biases, we interview potential users who shared the persona of John. Asking our users to complete a list of tasks while navigating the current NUS Business site. This was helpful in identifying potential areas for the card sorting process.
Internal card sorting within ourselves to have an assessment of own assumptions.
A hybrid card sorting with participants before going live on the online version using Optima Workshop.
Similarity Matrix/Dendrogram/Tree testing
Using Optima Workshop's card sorting and tree testing tools, we sent it across 25 participants. The results of the hybrid card sorting helped us see the linkage between the content on the site.
The dendrogram helps us to identify the trends and possible groupings that is logical from our data.
The tree testing results from Optima Workshop gave us data on which task was difficult for users.
New IA sitemap
The results derived from the tree testing was used to create the new sitemap.
Sketches and wireframes
I started off by sketching the current site’s wireframes on paper to have a better understanding of the layout and flow on the pages. It helped me see the flow at one glance.
Mid-fi prototype for user testing
Using Axure, I created the wireframes with the use of the paper prototypes. After the initial rounds of testing using the paper prototypes, there were some changes we made to the mid-fi prototype.
We tested out the mid-fi prototypes with users and had another round of discussion to see what could be done better.
Hi-fi prototype
Using Sketch and the interactions via Invision, I created the first draft of the NUS Business school web UI. Because the layout was designed to be adaptive, the fluid design was easily adaptable onto mobile.
Hi-fi prototype for NUS Business school web
Responsive mobile web UI design
Improving students' experience
This project helped improve NUS Business students' online experience and significantly sorted out the complex content architecture most educational websites suffered from.
One of the important things I would say is a measurable metric for users would be the time spent on accomplishing tasks. We improve that by cutting down steps and removing unnecessary clutter.